The one who knows

In our quest for fame and popularity, do we run the risk of corrupting our soul, and alienating our core Self, asks Megha Bajaj

Within each of us there exists the One who knows. So even when we show the entire world how happy we are, even if we post the most blissful pictures of ourselves across social media – if we are crying and unhappy within, there is that One who knows it.

We may lie to the world. We may fabricate stories. And yet, in moments of alone-ness, in moments of silence, the One who knows can be heard the loudest. It knows what we said was not true, it knows better. It recognizes the split. It reacts to the split. It stops trusting us.

We may show the world that we are a success story. But the One within knows the debts. Knows the betrayals. The truth. It knows that success may have come at a crazy price.

Within each one of us, there exists the One who knows. And the mistake many of us make is that in pretending to be something we are not, we are not focussing on the One that we actually are. Branding our companies, branding ourselves on social media, the likes we get, the comments our posts generate, are becoming a bit too important to us. And in all this projection, we are forgetting something. Rather, someone. The One who knows.

Branding our companies, branding ourselves on social media, the likes we get, the comments our posts generate, are becoming too important to us.

For all the messages we forward on Whatsapp – how many of them are we really living? The few thumbs up that we receive for a good message sent (most of which we know we have taken from yet another group), will satiate our egos for a few minutes. However, it is taking time off Whatsapp, and investing some time getting to know “what’s in”, that will give us a longer, more permanent sense of joy and peace.

Like everyone else, I too have a very active facebook page. Expressions and words keep brewing within me, and I feel a compelling need to write my thoughts and feelings. Earlier, I used to write what made me happy. Whatever flowed, I wrote. However, over time, if a particular post received less likes, I started deleting it and putting something that I thought had a greater mass appeal. And the likes grew – making me feel I was doing a great job.

However, one day I received a message from someone I love and trust dearly. He wrote, “I follow your facebook page religiously. And I must share that in the last two to three weeks, something has shifted in your writing. Instead of coming across as fresh and straight from the heart – it comes across as convulated and somehow just not the Megha Bajaj I know.”

Spontaneous tears trickled down my eyes. It was no big deal, and yet it was a very big deal. I realised, unknowingly, I too had begun to corrupt a bit of my soul and my writing to give people what they wanted, instead of remaining true to myself. I had started writing for likes, and not for the joy the words gave me. That moment I decided – whether I got 100 likes, or 1000 – I would only write what I felt was absolutely true and came from the One within.

Sometimes what I share is loved. Sometimes it is not. I remain neutral. The One within is happy – and I know, in the long run, that is what matters. The world and its opinions are fickle and will keep changing – ultimately it is the One within who will stay with me till the end, and I plan to honour Her. Now. And forever.s.

About the author: Megha is, above all, a seeker. These days she is attempting to find herself in the role of a teacher through the online writing course designed by her. You can know more about her on www.wonderofwords.org